The subject matter herein relates generally to terminal crimping devices for crimping electrical terminals to wires.
Terminal crimping machines have long been used in the connector industry to effect high-speed mass termination of various cables. It is common practice for the terminal crimping machine to have an interchangeable tooling assembly called an applicator. In general, such terminal crimping machines are referred to as a terminator or press; however other types of terminal crimping machines may similarly be used, such as a lead maker, a bench machine, or a hand crimping tool. The terminal crimping machines includes a movable tool that is moved towards a base component during a crimping stroke to crimp a terminal on the base component to an end of a wire, producing an electrical lead.
The electrical lead is typically assembled into an electrical connector, which may be part of a wire harness. Some electrical connectors are expected to be exposed to harsh environmental conditions in use, such as for connectors on automobiles, trains, boats, and the like. The harsh environmental conditions, such as the presence of dirt, sand, debris, liquids, radiation, heat, cold, corrosive elements, vibration, pressure, or the like, have a proclivity to interfere with the crimped connection between the terminal and the wire, possibly resulting in a faulty connection between the wire and the electrical connector. To protect the crimped connection from the harsh environmental conditions, the leads on some electrical connectors have compression seals that are designed to seal the wire of the lead to the housing of the electrical connector to prevent debris, contaminants, and other harsh environmental conditions from affecting the crimped connection within the housing, thus preserving the electrical connection between the wire and the electrical connector. The seals are typically sandwiched between the wire and a portion of the terminal during the crimping operation to fix the seal in place on the electrical lead.
Known terminal crimping machines are not without disadvantages, especially when used to produce electrical leads that have compression seals. For instance, as the movable tool moves towards the terminal on the base component to form the terminal around the wire and the compression seal, the forces at play may cause the compression seal to move axially along the wire away from the distal end of the wire, to roll back onto itself, to twist, to move radially, or the like. Such movement of the compression seal is undesired because it may prevent the terminal from crimping properly to the seal and wire, it may damage the compression seal, and/or it may misalign the seal with the wire. Each situation may compromise the effectiveness of the compression seal at sealing the wire to the housing of the electrical connector, resulting in a leak path across the seal that could allow the harsh environmental conditions to interfere with the crimped connection of the lead.
A need remains for terminal crimping machine that does not damage or misalign the compression seals on the wires during the crimping process.